Why does my Mackie 1202vlz4 sound better than a Soundcraft MTK 22?

[SynthWizard]

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Why does my Mackie 1202vlz4 sound better than a Soundcraft MTK 22?

Ran long, tl;dr: Soundcraft didn't sparkle, possible reasons?

Hi, I'm trying to understand how these two mixers differ to better inform what I buy next. Using both modular and other gear.

I grabbed the Soundcraft for more channels and the USB individual multitrack out, and very excitedly set it up. Long story shorter, I ended up doing a long side-by-side comparison with the Mackie after noticing that the Soundcraft sounded a bit muddy. Ran a Grandmother into a StarLab and switched back and forth between the mixers. Additionally I ran one mixer mono to left and the other to right, bounced between them, switched sides, etc. (Used Adams T5Vs)

I noticed the Soundcraft was distorting a bit, but the biggest thing I noticed was a lack of sparkle in the high end. The twinkly reverb from the StarLab wasn't as present on the Soundcraft and it lacked clarity. Adjusting EQ didn't add anything.

I'm trying to use this as a learning experience to help me understand what's happening in a mixer. As far as I can tell both of these have analog signal paths to the monitor outs. Line inputs were used on both so the difference in mic preamps shouldn't be a factor. Although I did have to up the gain on the Soundcraft a good amount to hear anything, so would that be adding in a preamp to boost the signal?

What are your thoughts on the factors at play here?

Contemplating just upgrading to the 16 channel Mackie since I like the sound of what I've got and it has individual outs, but then I'll need an interface with more inputs. Or getting their new Onyx16, though this experience has made me hesitant to get a mixer with extra stuff like effects and interface capabilities.

Dang, this ran long. Sorry.

submitted by /u/The_Real_Carl_Sagan
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